Insects and arachnids

It was done by Octavius Pickard-Cambridge and other 19th-century arachnologists, who documented how web-building spiders use silk as both a trap and a structural tool.

The family name comes from the genus Theraphosa, a standard zoological name used for some of the largest spiders in the world.

Naturalists studying jumping spiders in the 19th and early 20th centuries first recorded their visual courtship dances, which rely on movement rather than webs.

The diving bell spider was described by early European naturalists, who noted that it builds an underwater silk chamber filled with air.

The fluorescent glow of scorpions was first noted by naturalists in the 19th century and later confirmed with ultraviolet light experiments.

It was established by early arachnologists, who grouped ticks and mites within Acari but recognized their major differences in form and life cycle.

Karl von Frisch showed that honeybees use the waggle dance to tell nestmates the direction and distance of food sources.

Early tropical naturalists documented fungus-farming ants, and later myrmecologists showed that leafcutter ants cultivate fungus as a primary food source.

It was popularized by scientists such as Edward O. Wilson and colleagues, who showed that ants leave chemical trails for nestmates to follow.

Researchers studying African termite mounds showed that the structures regulate temperature and airflow for the colony.

Ronald Ross identified in 1897 that mosquitoes transmit malaria parasites, proving the disease was spread by an insect vector.

Walter Reed and his U.S. Army commission showed in 1900 that mosquitoes spread yellow fever.

Researchers in the early 20th century, especially Paul-Louis Simond, demonstrated that fleas transmit plague between rodents and humans.

Ancient Chinese observers identified the silkworm’s metamorphosis and the use of its cocoon for silk, a discovery tied to early sericulture traditions.

Researchers including Fred Urquhart and his collaborators documented the monarch’s long-distance migration across North America.

Jan Swammerdam carefully dissected insects in the 17th century and showed that metamorphosis is a continuous developmental process.

Early 20th-century medical researchers identified mosquitoes as the vectors of dengue fever, linking the disease to insect transmission.

Early comparative anatomists in the 19th century identified chitin as a major structural material in arthropod exoskeletons.

Karl von Frisch and later researchers demonstrated that bees can see ultraviolet markings that guide them to nectar.

Adolf Butenandt isolated bombykol in 1959, identifying one of the first insect sex pheromones.

Naturalists in North America recorded periodical cicada cycles in the 18th and 19th centuries, showing their remarkable synchronized emergence.

Sericulture historians and entomologists showed that Bombyx mori is one of the earliest domesticated insects, bred for silk over thousands of years.

Naturalists studying fireflies and glow-worms first documented insect bioluminescence, especially in beetle groups such as Lampyridae.

Early apiarists and naturalists, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, clarified that the queen is the reproductive center of the hive.